Pinkie’s first Pokémon Tournament

I felt like watching TV today, then I realised my tv-box broke. Since my youtubers haven’t uploaded my favorite content yet , yes like 90%  most of it is pokémon related, so I decided to do a little personal story. Inspired by the 30 day geek out challenge, post by A Geeky Gal I decided to talk about one of my first fandom moments. My first Pokemon tournament.

A foul boy
There I was, fourteen  years old, I did not really know where there was, dad drove me much to his dismay. I was somewhere quite a long drive from home judging by dad’s chagrin. I was to excited and nervous to notice any of it though! I would be on tv and win my first Pokemon tournament! i did not know I was not signed up and was there just battling in a no rules anything goes, friendly compo. No real winner, but you get points for winning, or something. I was too stupid to notice, so let’s be honest I was not going to win ever. Dressed in blue, with some pink boots (as I had a copy of Pokémon Blue to play on). Pokémon Stadium was about to come out and today viewers of Fox Kids, could already come and play the game and compete.  Tightly clutching to my purple gameboy colour. It had a sticker of Parasect stuck to its battery tray and upper spine, It had a bit of a fold around the eyes, but I loved Parasect..it was on my team as well.  The sticker also kept me from losing my battery hatch thing. I looked around, seeing the podium where I would soon be crowned the best *cough*. A boy about my age asked if he could see my team, I thought he looked mean and I refused. He shrugged bumped into me and he moved on. I sniffled, see I knew that he was mean!  He then approached a young very blond boy, about half my age, he asked to see his team, the boy proudly showed him. The meany started a new game on the boy’s cartridge and saved the game. The young blond boy was just eliminated from the competition, while smiling the older boy would walk off. The blonde boy cried…but unlike me he would make the tv. The other boy was not just mean anymore he was foul! I was scared! I did not want my dear friends to die. 

Beating my peers
I traded the blond boy my Hitmonlee, a backup Pokémon I had that wasn’t really on my planned line-up. In fact he was even detrimental to my strategy. Someone else traded him a vileplume and another gave him a vaporeon. Eventually the boy had enough Pokémon to play a few matches.He didn’t win a lot..but he didn’t seem to care.
I DID win a lot. My team was made to beat my sister, she had a team of 6 mewtwo, she would catch it, transfer it to me start a new game and repeat the process until she had 6. We would then battle… after a thousand or so losses,I got pretty good at countering mewtwo. I figured a lot of people would enter with teams like this….and I was right. Of course this wasn’t allowed in the actual competition but little did I know I was not a part of that, I never went to things like these before. My team involved me using Parasect to spore a mewtwo to sleep, then use dream eater  on gengar or pin missile on jolteon to finish it off quickly. I also had a dig+surf rhydon and a fly moltres, to avoid attacks. Protect wasn’t a thing back then so those were nice to stall out Fire Blasts. Besides Mewtwo Charizard was used a lot. My bird Hades and rhino Sjaak dealt with that. My last Pokémon was a psybeam, because confusion was neat, Kadabra, my sister refused to give me the trade evolution, which was evolved after the tournament. All in all I managed to create a team what was good against the younger inexperienced kids meta. My sister had little imagination, mine got me a lot of wins that day. I apparently even attracted the attention of some fans who liked seeing a non competitive battler take down teams of mewtwo’s.  Even the blonde boy came to cheer me in, and give me my pokemon back, because he was going home. He thanked me , though I think that was his mother speaking, when I think about it now! Tv folk weren’t interested though!

The real deal
At 14 year old I really fell into a bit of a gap. With the internet not being what it is today, I did not know all the details about Pokémon yet, like EV’s and things like STAB bonuses.  I just was really good at reading my sister who picked up what the playground said was the best to use. When the real compo was over and the pro-battlers ended the scene my luck soon dried up. I was trashed by people who actually leveled their mons to 100 rather than using Missingno. Yet those same people were very entertained that I managed to do so well against teams I should not win against. As a result I got this weird form of non-spoken respect and understanding that I would not see again until my first convention many many years later. I wasn’t a real battler, nor will  I ever be , because I HATE breeding and EV training. I wasn’t really part of the “Mewtwo is so cool’ group either. The latter didn’t dislike me for completely trashing them, I won..but it usually was close matches , and the first saw some potential in me. I was this oddball thing walking there that spoke about her Parasect I named Ed like it was my actual pet. Ed was such a swell pal and I genuinely cared for him.
In fact I might even still have Ed on my old cartridge.Baron the Alakazam and Mo the Jolteon would transfer to Johto, only to get deleted after realising Chikorita wasn’t all that amazing. Rest in peace guys!. All in all I had a swell day, I think I even surprised dad at how good at passionate I was in this game, because after that day, he never nagged about me playing Pokémon ever again. On the ride back he even wasn’t grumpy at all. I’d like to think in a weird way without understanding it to much, he was kinda proud of me that day. I had a great day, meeting peers, not being bullied for a a day and being well liked for a while.  It would take me awhile to find that feeling again. I got sick a few years later, just after I moved past the bullying, which prevented me from exploring it early. But that day I will remember, how nice it felt to trade Vuistje the Hitmonchan, the shoulderpats from total strangers and my dad remembering Ed for a good while after.  It was nice to play with fans and be a fan!

This short little tale was inspired by the Geek-Out Challenge of “A Geeky Gal’ click on her name to check it out! It was sponsored by the poor services of my telecom provider who donated a significant amount of free time.Special thanks to Ed, Baron, Vuistje, Mo, Sjaak Hades and KISS. Hope to see you in the next blog little monsters! Stay pink!

X